With strong leadership and the resolve to become the most important source of education in vascular disease management, the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) has grown into a large organization with education, research, and political arms. The SVS offers many activities and programs to further the education of vascular specialists; however, it is the Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM) that remains the SVS's single most important event. The VAM is the product of a full year of planning and includes contributions from hundreds of vascular surgeons and vascular specialists from across the country and internationally. This year, the VAM will continue to demonstrate the SVS's commitment to the full scope of vascular health, including vascular disease prevention, diagnosis, and endovascular and open surgical management.
This supplement is a new, collaborative project of the SVS Program Committee and the Journal of Vascular Surgery. It outlines the full scope of educational activities at the annual meeting, allowing attendees to most effectively use their time at the meeting. We have published all peer-reviewed abstracts that will be presented at the annual meeting, including plenary sessions, rapid-paced papers, and posters, so they can be read before the meeting. You can select the sessions and presentations that are most interesting to you. We have also listed the other continuing medical education (CME) activities, to allow you to sign up for activities that will improve your understanding of vascular disease.
Some of the highlights of the VAM are the Presidential Address, where we showcase our President, Pat Claggett. Pat's topic will be “Does Vascular Surgery Cost Too Much.” The Crawford Forum, moderated by our incoming President, Tony Sidawy, addresses an issue critical to our profession. This year's Forum will explore “Maintenance of Certification,” an issue that will affect all of us and that needs to be fully understood by vascular surgeons.
The SVS VAM has four primary components:
1.Peer reviewed papers. The SVS VAM is committed to being the meeting that promotes the reporting of new knowledge in vascular disease management. Historically, this has been the primary function of our meeting: the provision of new knowledge through paper presentations with open critique from the audience. The process of selection is very intense: Eight members of the Program Committee reviewed 327 blinded abstracts and rated each on originality, quality, and relevance to SVS members. We selected the top papers in 14 categories related to vascular disease management, and they will be presented in three different forums.
a.Plenary sessions for original research. We will continue to have peer reviewed papers as the centerpiece of our plenary sessions, but have modified the length of presentations to allow more participation by SVS members. The reduction in time from 10 to 7 minutes has been well accepted by the SVS membership and allows for more discussion and more papers to be presented at the meeting.
b.Rapid-paced session. We added a rapid-paced session several years ago for papers that have a critical point to make but might not need the full 7 minutes for presentation. These papers, many of which are among the highest rated, will be presented on Sunday. This is a very efficient way to get a broad education in vascular disease management.
c.Oral poster sessions. We know that many excellent abstracts are not selected for presentation at the plenary sessions, and that the best of these abstracts will be of great interest to the SVS membership, so the SVS Program Committee has decided to add 100 posters to the VAM. This approach has been used by other basic science and clinical societies, including other vascular surgery societies. Our plan this year is to have posters segregated by topic in the Exhibit Hall.During the meeting, each group of posters, generally grouped by similar topic, will be presented by the authors in a poster session. A system of peer evaluation, with a VAM Program Committee member moderating, will be used to select the best of each group of 10 posters. There will then be a plenary session “championship” round in which the best 10 posters will vie for selection as one of the top three posters. We anticipate that each individual session and the championship round will be very appealing to the SVS membership and that you will particularly want to attend any session in which you have a significant clinical or research interest. Cash prizes will be awarded to the top three presentations at the plenary session.
2.Postgraduate courses. These courses provide an opportunity for SVS members and guests to take three separate courses on the Wednesday before the meeting. Seven topics, from endovascular to open surgery to clinical research, will be offered to SVS members who believe that they need additional education in these areas. For many SVS members, the postgraduate courses are a very efficient way to get additional CME credit in common vascular topics. It is much more cost-effective to attend these courses than to travel to a separate course, which has additional expenses, as well as time away from a practice.
3.Breakfast sessions. These sessions are designed to address topics of interest to SVS members that can be covered in 1½ hours. The SVS Education Council has responsibility for these programs and tries to select broad-based topics of interest to various segments of our society. The topics range from endovascular to open surgery to office-based to hybrid operating rooms. Each year the topics selected are partially based on the feedback that we receive from our membership in the final evaluations from the pervious year's meeting, and we will continue to change the topics to meet your needs.
4.Concurrent sessions. These are 1½- to 2-hour afternoon sessions, presented by experts in their field, on a broad range of topics. They are often initiated by societies that are affiliated with the SVS. They range from a joint session with the Society for Vascular Ultrasound to topics of interest to Chairs of Vascular Surgery to joint programs with the European Vascular Society. Most of these sessions provide CME credit, although a few do not if they do not meet the ACCME requirements.
5.Clinical debates. Another event that you will not want to miss is the debates. This year, the debate topics are (1) the role of medical vs surgical therapy for thoracic outlet syndrome and (2) the competing roles of endovascular and open surgery in critical limb ischemia of the lower extremities. Both are hotly discussed issues in our literature. The debates provide an opportunity for the audience to become involved in the debate, by voting, using a real-time audience response system at the end of each debate.
This year is sure to be an exceptional meeting. Make your plans now to attend. We look forward to seeing you at the meeting and hearing your suggestions to continue improving our meeting and making it an exceptional annual educational event.
Chief of Vascular Surgery, Director, Gonda Vascular Center, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif
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